Note ban: Rs 60,000 husband had kept aside is now piece of paper for Solan widow

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 20

Bimla Devi, the widow of a sepoy, is an illiterate who lives in remote Ukhoo village in Doon area of Solan. On January 3, she stumbled upon the Rs 60,000 that her husband Kisan Lal had secretly kept in the house for a rainy day.

Bimla, 62, had no idea that she would be a victim of demonetisation. She was shocked when her daughter, a mid-day meal helper, and her granddaughter, Madhu, an ITI student, told her that the money was now just a piece of paper.

The money, in the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, is nothing short of a fortune for the ageing Bimla.

Bimla and Madhu took the money to a local bank at Dighal for exchange on January 10 in the hope that the notes would be exchanged till March. They pleaded with the bank managers who rejected the plea saying the RBI had stopped the exchange and the facility was available only to the NRIs till March.

Bimla said she had no idea that their hard-earned money could one day even invite action against her.

“We had gone to visit grandma in the village. We were cleaning grandfather’s almirah when we found the money hidden in clothes,” Madhu said, adding that her grandmother had become a victim of the note ban and the RBI must exchange the money.

“I have no job and grandma’s three sons are all daily-wagers. This is a big amount for us,” rued Madhu, whose father died a few years ago and even her ITI diploma education is being funded by schoolteachers.

The family met Aam Aadmi Party leader and former minister Mahender Sofat, who took up the matter with the RBI, Chandigarh, but to no avail. “If the RBI is exchanging banned notes of NRIs till March, then what stops it from helping the poor victim of demonitisation?” he wondered.